Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-08-11


for clever talent, and it is little more.
Raphael and Angelo knew that literal
transcripting was not art.
The heart of Rose Jourdon had expert
enced romance of kind not exception
al for the day and place. There always
has been romance lowering around our
great gulf coast, but romance was more
intense fifty years ago than it is now.
even in Mobile. Men died for love in
those days, and women deemed it an
honor TO love once and forever. Then
indeed, was woman's love worth q mans
life to gain and hold.
When Rose Jourdon returned from a
long stay abroad aud became the I'M
spoiled pet of Mobile society, her heart
was already given to handsome, noble,
and gifted lover Count Silvio Martini of
Florence. Roses stay abroad had been
peculiarly tr1umphal in a social way
She had been presented at great courts,
and she had attracted the atte ntion and
friendship of Samuel Rogers, Lamartine,
of Hugo, and of grand old Goethe, for she
was a poet of rare promise as well as a
beauty, and she had fred the heart of
many courtly man. Happy indeed was
Count Silvio Martini to win so sweet a
prize. He pleaded in vain, however, for
their marriage to take place in Florence;
Rose felt that she could not be wed in a
foreign land. So she came home in the
spring and the count followed her late in
the autumn.
That was a season of great social bril-
liancy and activity in the little city by
the gulf. Count Silvio Martini ca ptivat-
ed everyone with his dignity, his culture,
his handsome face, AMI the perfect Ital.
ian music of his voice. In those days
Mobile had no railroads, of course, and
her harbor was not the best; but her sit
uation, although plated, was somewhat
commanding, and great wealth of
cotton and other products streamed
throug her gates. Her people were as
rich as they were naughty and exclusive;
they were also superbly hospitable aud
grandly extrayagant in their methods of
social entertainment. The count was &C
corded a welcome into every inner circle
of the most exclusive class, AMI he was
surprised at the pr1ncely, the almost in
describable lavishness of the baDqueting
offered him. The homes of the little city
were thrown open to him, servants were
at his command, horses, carriages, dogs,
guns, yachts were always ready for him,
while the prOfuse cOurtesies of brave men
and stately women were lavished upon
him, and yet nothing seemed done with
any effort or trouble; all was ease, grace
and gentleness of a sort peculiarly Amer
lean and altogether southern.
Count Silvio, with an Italians fiexibiI-
ity and adj disability 60 social demands,
met this generous hospitality with
suavity and courtly sincerity of demean-
or so magnetic and pleasing that he at
once became great favorite. Naturally
enough he had expected to find America
very new aud very strange, but he was
fascinated by the charm of this refine
ment-more refined III certain regards
than that of any society he had known,
connected, too, with such freedom.
In those days the vice of gaming was
prevalent in the south, and the count was
devoted card player. SO it came about
that, in com pany with friends, he often
sat at table at a fashionable resort. 1t
was over this table that the quarrel arose,
but cards or stakes bad nothing to do
with 1t. 1t was the actress, Mile. Dupree,
who was just then playing in Mobile, that
caused the trouble. It matters little as
TO details; suffice it to say that the beau
tiful and eccentric young woman became
for few minutes the subject of light
conversation among the card players, and
finally young Marcy Farm we'll, who was a
little in wine, said something rather de-
rogatory regarding the character of
Mile. Dupree. Instantly the count struck
nim.
IF thunderbolt had fallen in the room
it would have caused less consideration.
The affair was absolutely inexplicable to
all present, even to Marcy Farnwell, who
however, promptly returned the blow,
and wea pons Instantly flashed in tho air,
but friends interfered and the combatants
were separated.
It takes bnt few words to set such an
incident before the readers mind, but a
little reflection will emphazise the pic
ture. In those days a quarrel between
men who called themselves gentlemen
meant blood aud death. a duel was the
only result TO be thought of IN this case.
Marcy Farnweil was the challenger, and
the count chose pistols at distance of
ten PAGES. 1t was all so swiftly arranged
that, though the quarrel ended at about
IL in the evening, the meeting came off
next morning at sunrise, three miles be-
low the city, on the beach of the bay.
There had been strenuous efforts to &C
com plish a reconciliation; but the count
was implacabie and young FarnwsH was
stubborn. So the matter was pushed rapid
ly to its tragic outcome. Indeed It was
quite over Sefore more than rumOr of 1T
had gone abroad in the city.
In those days daels were common in
cidents of life in the south but soeIety
never could quite adinst itself so as to
even appear indifferent to the custom OF
a peaiing to the arbitrament of death.
E 4ch duel as is trans pired seemed a little
more shocking to Christian enlighten-
ment than the preceding one. Mobile
had buried many pro1d and beloved sic
times d'bonneuq, and had cherished the
code, but each sacrifice to the barbaGeus
custom seemed greater than any other,
and so the strain grew more cruel yea2 by
yeer.
But if there was one phase of this So
called chivalry which was lore ter7sble
pathetic than all the rest, it was that of a
young man upon the dueling field as the
threshold of married life, whea. the
sweet girl fiancee cast aside her half fin
ished trousseau and sank into the gloom
of more than WiGOHhoOd.